1.6
Diffusion of Innovations
An account of how an innovation spreads through a population over time, and of the innovation attributes that set the rate.
Everett Rogers (1962), on Ryan & Gross's 1943 Iowa hybrid seed corn study
What it does
Five adopter groups and, more usefully, five attributes that govern how fast anything spreads: relative advantage, compatibility, complexity, trialability, observability. The second list is the working tool.
When it breaks
Strong at explaining backwards, weak at predicting forwards. You only know who the early adopters were afterwards.
Case
Rogers' own documented failure is the Los Molinos water-boiling campaign in Peru: two years of work, one worker making 15–25 visits to each of 21 families, and only about 11 of the village's 200 families adopted — because locally, boiled water was coded as food for the sick.
Rogers — Diffusion of Innovations (PDF) ↗Diagram — not yet drawn
The S-curve with the five attributes drawn as forces bending it steeper or flatter — not the usual five-segment bell, which encodes nothing actionable.
In the wild
Unvetted · not part of the tier assessment
What has been written about this tool in the last twelve months. Machine-retrieved and unchecked — everything above this line was checked.
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